No impacts on radiation safety after incident at Leningrad nuclear plant

ST. PETERSBURG, January 6. /TASS/. Malfunctions at one of the units of the Leningrad nuclear plant had no adverse impacts on radiation safety, spokesman for the nuclear plant Andrei Alberti told TASS on Tuesday.

“The incident was related to electrical equipment that is placed several hundred metres away from the reactor. The radiation level at the station is within natural background limits,” he said.

The incident at the plant’s unit one was reported on January 4. Emergency shutdown controls were activated when the shell of one of the unit’s two transformers was damaged. The transformer was switched off. The plant’s capacity went down by 300 megawatts.

“It will have no impact on consumers,” Alberti said.

The Leningrad nuclear plant is located on the coast of the Gulf of Finland some 35 kilometres of St. Petersburg’s suburbs and 70 kilometres away from the city’s centre.